Month: April 2016

Oh lord, hello beautiful everything. It starts like this for me, “I hate that about myself,” “Lets find something amazing and beautiful about it to love,” “Cool!” “Wait, now I have the opposite problem” “That’s still amazing too” “Crap.” “What do I do!?!?!?” This is basically me as a child and hating the fact that I wasn’t magically born with a certain set of skills, such as being strong. (My child and teenage brain thought that you had to be magically born that way and you couldn’t do anything to change it.) Well, I’m still not strong but I finally turned it around in my head to make it into a good thing. Being strong only really meant something when I was younger because I did gymnastics but I was tall and 12 and in the same level as 5 year olds because I wasn’t strong enough to do a thing on the bars. (fyi to illustrate how serious i am about being 12 and them all being five, we used to run around in circles first of all, and I had to run barley lifting my legs because I thought I would kick whoever was behind me in the face). Anyway, still to this day I am kind of ashamed to say that I was 12 and in level 1 and 2. I am able though finally to believe that it really wasn’t my lack of skills in everything, since I could do things in high levels on the floor, I just had the problem with balance and strength. So when I am ashamed of how low I was on the levels, I think of a way to counter that like, “well it actually is a funny story,” or “people might think it is endearing how much I screw up.” But now that I’m older and have been doing yoga, I can get strong, and can be more balanced again. I now know I can make myself that way instead of being born that way, and then I think of, but wait, I saw that girl in yoga class on television that kept falling and it looked so cute even though it wasn’t perfect. Now which one do I want!? Well, now I’ll find the beauty in this “problem” i have of seeing everything beautiful…the possibilities are now, literally and completely endless!

“this morning Jack found a rainbow on the wall. I honestly couldn’t figure out where it was coming from which according to science means ti’s some sort of portal. You ever see Stargate? Exactly. We were careful not to get too close. I snapped this photo and it dawned on me how much Jack looks like Anna. They are both so beautiful. Sleeping in with the two of them is my greatest treasure.” This is a quote from Chris Pratt. He and Anna Faris have been my biggest relationship goals ever. They love each other so much and I love looking at his instagram and seeing his amazingly sweet comments about her and their son. And then I realized simply how easy that must be for him. How easy it must be for them to have this wonderful life. In every picture I see of them together, or just her in general she is so happy. The thing I really notice is her smiling and waving at paparazzi, even though they are probably annoying, but she is not letting them ruin her day. Exhibit A: (picture from denimblog) Seeing someone who I always see in pictures always smiling and being positive has made me feel one way about her, she is the good I can be in recovery. I have been shown how being constantly positive can work in so many ways. I always thought that being positive and giving up anorexia would be just giving up. Like giving up the image I wanted others to have of me so I can be happy. I always knew happiness would be good (obviously) but I always thought I would have a hole inside of me without anorexia. But now I know that I can take a positive attitude, let it make me happy, while also using that as an amazing image for others to have of me. I don’t have to be sick all the time. If all my “friends” are trying to trigger me into the eating disorder more and more, it doesn’t have to be, “Ill be nothing if I don’t have this,” it is, “I can be this instead and it’s so much better!” And I have finally found something that I can control. I used to want to control my life by the eating disorder, but looking at Chris Pratt’s instagram and remembering their beautiful life over the years has made me believe just now that positivity is a great thing to control. I can get triggered and triggered but if I decided to smile through it like Anna Faris does, everything will be amazing. That is a great way to take the high road, a beautiful, perfection, amazing way to take the high road. And while sometimes I think that I can still restrict and smile through it giving me the same affect, I must now start to believe that you can’t be sick and not be sick at the same time. (Picture from eonline) I just added this picture because I think it is the epitome of how amazing positivity can look from the outside as well as the inside.

Apparently there is going to be an eating recovery day…may 3rd. When we already have an eating disorder awareness week. This is another recipe for people to glamorize eating disorders by posting numbers. This is what happens every time. Every neda awareness week. Everything around me is flooded with calorie talk, transformations, weights, number of hospitalizations. I think if eating disorder places want to be helpful, instead of just creating a day or a week dedicated to recovery, they should tell the whole world that numbers and things like that are not helpful, and if they see people talking about calories and things like that, it is a recipe for relapse or an eating disorder to start. If I were creating this day, I would make an article that said something like this, “May 3rd is national eating recovery day! Many people suffer from this deadly illness, but this is not a day for sufferers to talk about numbers, it’s a day to talk about positivity. It’s not a day to talk about where you were at, it’s a day to talk about where you are now. Your story is not more or less important because of numbers or because of the past. The story is not about being the best at this disease, it’s about being fabulous at getting better. Talk of calories and weight and hospitalizations, not only is triggering, it robs so many people of a day that could be filled with positivity.” When I see calorie numbers in recovery, I want to go back to that. When I see calorie numbers when I am sick, I don’t care, because I’m sick, and I can do whatever I want, and I don’t care what happens. But when you are trying to be positive and get well, the calories talk makes me want to stop getting well, and makes me want to get back to those few calories again, and seeing an email about an eating recovery day should not have filled me with dread. I may still be sick at the moment, but I’m not as sick as I was. Even though I’m sick, I want to get better, and I don’t want to be triggered and I am trying to not use behavior, whereas last year, like I said, triggers were there, but I could do whatever I wanted so it doesn’t affect me as much as it does when I’m trying to remain recovered or trying to get to that place.

I’ve been doing well this week. Tonight though, I was having some trouble and my mom needed me to do something for her. I didn’t think I could walk very well so I had to eat more than I felt I could. Yes, I spent the rest of the day with this on my mind. It’s still on my mind. For about 2 hours I was only thinking of it. Wanting it to be tomorrow to start again, wanting to take it back, getting mad so easily because I wanted to cry over the stress of eating. But then, while I am still guilty, I realized that I can’t deal with it until tomorrow. Restricting tomorrow it not a good thing to do, but I cannot dwell on what I did today because it won’t change a thing. Actually it will change a thing. If I kept dwelling, i’m not sure I would have laughed as hard as I did today. I was watching a video on youtube and I just found it hilarious! I laughed in a way that I laugh when I watch REALLY funny videos, or when I’m slap happy with my friends and start laughing hysterically. It was like those times when my mom is in bed and I try so hard to stay quiet but I end up wailing, and she wakes and asks what I’m laughing about. I remember the time I was watching the Oscars in my room and my mom was asleep and this guy said, “I should have got a hair cut.”It was the very first thing he said in his speech and I couldn’t contain myself. It took me probably over 5 minutes to tell my mom what I was laughing at because I couldn’t talk. So edwardo, could you have given me that tonight? if I kept up with your stupid rules could I have laughed like that!? I don’t think so! Thank you the fighting version of myself, I liked what happened tonight. 🙂

I am sorry for putting those horrible words and thoughts into your head. I was formed by society and what started as an insecurity started to turn evil and eventually I tried to kill you. I am sorry I have almost cost you your life multiple times. I thought I was trying to help, but now that I have seen you smile in recovery, I realize that controlling your life with food isn’t the way to get to all the things that make you smile when you tell me to shut up. I don’t blame you for telling me to shut up. I don’t blame you for hating me. You have every right to hate me. I am just a stupid, pathetic eating disorder. The only thing that needs to feel ashamed and insecure is me, the eating disorder. And remember, you are not me, you are not the eating disorder, therefore you do not need to feel ashamed along with me. I told you lies and you can only listen to them so much before you start to believe them. It’s natural to listen to things over and over that so many people are saying then start to believe them. I doesn’t make you crazy. I am the crazy one for trying to get innocent people to hurt themselves. Society is the crazy one. We are one in the same, society and me. I am going to leave you alone now. I know how relieved you will be without me. You will never have to worry about calories, you won’t have to hide, you won’t have to lie. I know how awful it feels to lie, I am the biggest liar of them all, and I have caused you to lie. Don’t feel bad about your lies, I am an awful entity, and I told you, you had no choice but to lie. No one blames you. I know you can never forgive me, but I want you to know that I am sorry. I will leave you alone forever. I’m going to go now, I’m going to go work on my attitude.

I was looking at two things on instagram. One was a quote from project heal. It said something like, “Make wings out of the things that broke you and rise above the people who hurt you.” This makes we want to draw wings out of the things that hurt me and draw myself flying over the people hurt me. I don’t care anymore what my pictures looks like. I don’t care if it looks like a famous artist drew it or if a toddler drew it. I just want to draw it. Thinking about how much I don’t care makes me excited to draw it. Not just because it won’t lead to self-hate and be exhausting, but because I know for a fact that just because I know I won’t care what it looks like, I know I’ll think it looks good. Plus it will also mean something and be very personal so I’m pretty excited about it too. But mainly, the fact that I don’t care what the end product looks like, makes me excited to just LOOK at the end product. The other thing was someone on instagram who just said something like embracing what your body can do, with a video of her doing yoga. It reminded me that there are so many beautiful things our bodies are used for besides being “thin.” And not just that, but the broken road we walk to make them thin, takes away all the other beauty we can have from our bodies. We can be thin but have no energy to dance. They would just be thin, and thin only. But, if we are kind to our bodies and treat them healthily I can do yoga, and be able to bend my body in beautiful ways, I can dance in move in beautiful ways, I can do WHATEVER I want with my body. Eating disorders take away a freedom we have with our bodies because of the damage we do that causes us physically not being able to do certain things. When I first got to treatment last year I wasn’t even allowed to do minor yoga in yoga group because of how I messed up my body. One place I went to in treatment made us walk around with see-through robes on with nothing underneath every morning in front of everyone. I didn’t want to walk around basically without clothes on but I had to. I know they had a good reason for it but that wasn’t what I wanted to do with my body, but that control was taken from me, because of my eating disorder. I used to try to change by the weight room door so I wouldn’t have to go far or change in the stall and walk as fast as I could to the weight room before someone got in line before me, but it never made it completely better. The eating disorder causes horrible things and takes away so many beautiful things.

Not caring can literally change EVERYTHING! When I was a teenager I used to write stories and songs and I would sing my songs when I was alone all the time. When I was a child no one really ever complimented me except my family so by the time I grew up I felt worthless and not good at anything. I thought all my stories were horrible ideas and my songs were horrible and I was a horrible singer. I thought I wasn’t going to ever have a boyfriend or get a good job so I based my whole future on my singing and my stories, which was crazy considering for a long time no one ever saw them. I started telling my mom some ideas I had for stories. Looking back I am baffled that it took me so long to tell her about my ideas. I started telling others about my ideas but I still barely opened up because, maybe one person thought my idea was good but I felt everyone else would hate it. I thought the writing inside the main idea of the story was bad as well. I thought I had a terrible voice. Eventually I beat myself up way too much over my singing and writing that I stopped. Now, I’m not interested in writing stories and I wish I was. I am however still writing songs and singing though. I think about if I started a blog when I was 15. I have no clue what it would have been about, maybe about struggling with an eating disorder or poetry or something, but either way, looking back to then, I would have NEVER started a blog, and here I am now because I don’t care if people think my writing sucks. I record myself singing and I think I sound fine, and a whole lot better than my brain told me I sounded. This made me think that when I was 15 I thought I had no future. I still struggle with it. I still struggle with the thought I had at 15 where I would never get married or have a boyfriend. But guess what 15 year old me! You have had boyfriends since then! I don’t think I ever would have thought that I would ever tell anyone about my eating disorder and here I am writing a blog about it. When I write I add little lines in my blog that I like that my 15 year old self would have probably deleted off this blog page and put it in a journal only for her to see so that she could protect that one piece of self love from someone tearing that sentence to shreds, when she thought it was lovely. I am writing now, not because of the same reasons I wrote when i was a teenager. I write because I want to share things with people instead of just writing stories I make up, and my courage to share my eating disorder story, something I isolated myself and kept a secret from everyone since i was 15, has helped me recover. Maybe if I wasn’t so fearful I would have realized nothing really can have the capacity to be as bad as our minds tell us they will be. Sometimes we hide because we think people are going to say completely horrible things about us, but sometimes those words that we think are going to be used to describe us… that kind of evil in the world really doesn’t even exist. The lengths that self-loathing goes to destroy us, didn’t think about the fact that it is so impossible to be as horrid as we think we are.